


all the king's horses

by grinsekaetzchen



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Project Blackwing (Dirk Gently)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 18:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12846693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grinsekaetzchen/pseuds/grinsekaetzchen
Summary: “Doesn’t it get exhausting?” Todd had asked once, “Listening to the universe all the time?”Dirk had stopped trying to figure out where Todd had put the mug that Dirk had claimed as his and turned to face Todd. His mind was shocked into sudden silence. It was odd, but not un-nice.“Sometimes,” Dirk had allowed, and Todd had nodded.





	all the king's horses

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this after Episode 6 came out and then forgot to post it, oops, so the ending is obviously not what actually happened. Let's just pretend that in another universe, this is what happened if you like. Thank you to [Lydia](http://boxesfullofthoughts.tumblr.com/) and [Lauren](http://call-this-a-mask.tumblr.com/) for looking over this and letting me scream at them about this show!
> 
> I hope you like it!

> _All the king's horses and all the king's men_  
>  _Couldn't put me back together again_
> 
> 'All the King's Horses' - Karmina

 

Dirk thinks his thoughts have always raced.

Maybe not when he was a baby. Then, he was probably just staring at the world and marvelling at it – actually, perhaps his thoughts were racing even then, tumbling over and bumping into each other as they tried to take everything in, and his baby brain just didn’t realise it yet. Or it did, and it made him scream or laugh with glee or – Dirk isn’t quite sure; he likes to imagine that he was a happy baby, but the universe refuses to let him know, keeping those memories far away from him. From everyone, he supposes, no one remembers being barely a year old or their own birth and if they did, how unbelievably cool would that be?

Dirk does remember being a child, though. He remembers being around five and trying to concentrate on colouring carefully inside the lines of a picture (a particularly large bird or a cat, here it gets hazy), when he saw a butterfly and was immediately transfixed by its bright colours. He grabbed his crayons and tried to put the colours onto paper, not caring for the lines at all. Later, a teacher or a parent or – an _adult_ told him that he did it wrong, holding up his picture and saying, “You just covered everything in seven different colours, that’s not how it works”.

If Dirk were faced with that same problem now (and he’s aware that that could easily happen, just because Todd doesn’t have any colouring books in his flat doesn’t mean Dirk can’t go and buy any – actually, that’s a great idea and once he’s no longer – he’ll buy them at some point), he’d tell the adult, “The wills of the universe can’t be explained. Obviously, I was meant to colour over the lines of the bird-cat.”

Because sometimes it is the universe making Dirk’s thoughts spiral out of control. It sends hunches that often just feel like someone nudging him carefully, but other times it pulls and pushes at him until he stumbles into the direction it’s dragging him to - no matter if he wants to go or not. In any case, the hunches are usually accompanied by thoughts: thoughts of confusion, of sudden clarity, of fear, of curiosity, of looking at something and thinking, “I solved it”, but that’s always the last step and until then there’s a whirlwind in Dirk’s brain, never once stopping.

“Doesn’t it get exhausting?” Todd had asked once, “Listening to the universe all the time?”

Dirk had stopped trying to figure out where Todd had put the mug that Dirk had claimed as his and turned to face Todd. His mind was shocked into sudden silence. It was odd, but not un-nice.

“Sometimes,” Dirk had allowed, and Todd had nodded, his brows furrowed as if he was going to ask something else, but Dirk hadn’t known if he would have the answer to the next question, so he said, “Do you think un-nice is a word? I think it should be if it isn’t.” His brain started rattling again, spinning into action and whirring away from the quiet; skittering away like a scared animal.

Still, Todd’s question had left behind the memory of one second of blessed calm.

Dirk is aware that it’s not just the universe making his thoughts have a life of their own. Sometimes – most of the time – it’s just him. It’s just his brain making noise and not knowing how to stop, how to stop trying to find something to occupy itself with. It seems to always be in search of something. Except, that might be wrong. Dirk knows what searching something feels like. It’s something that sits deep in his stomach, that pulls at him and leads him somewhere. His brain isn’t looking for something, his thoughts aren’t falling over themselves to get to a certain goal.

His thoughts have always raced, yes. His thoughts have always been running, yes. Not running towards something, though, running _from_ something. (If Dirk were able to, he’d tell Todd this right now, tell him this epiphany because it is astounding, but Dirk can’t because – well, reasons.)

The only search his thoughts have ever been on is for something to fill the silence.

Because it’s not as if Dirk doesn’t know silence.

This other silence, though, the one that Todd had invoked, was new. It felt clear and calm, like something inside of him was settling down to let him breathe for a minute.

Todd had said once, “You know whenever I think I get your interconnected ramblings, you go one step further and my brain can’t follow any more.” Dirk had thought it was a complaint until Todd added, “My brain is just too slow for you sometimes.”

Not, “your brain is too fast”, not, “calm down”, not, “stay down” (not that last one – never that last one, Todd wouldn’t), but Todd saying he was too slow for him. Dirk thinks that this is when he started keeping track of the things that Todd said that made his brain go, “huh” and stop.

So, Dirk tried to figure it out, tried to notice when his thoughts halted for a second before gaining speed again. It was a secret case, in a way. One without any hunches because the universe never cared about him as a person, just about getting him where needed to go, but now that he was already with Todd, it gave him some free reign.

Todd didn’t realise that he was a person of interest in this case (then again, he’s always a person of interest to Dirk and he doesn’t seem to have noticed that either), but it didn’t matter because he continued to give Dirk reason for investigation. He kept saying something that made Dirk’s thoughts stop in their track and wait.

He kept surprising Dirk.

And then he did something more: He started interrupting Dirk when his thoughts came out of his mouth all muddled up, all contorted into run-on sentences that made Farah frown at him and Todd’s eyes narrow in confusion. One, “Dirk, breathe,” and Dirk’s thoughts suddenly raced to a stop, for a split second, long enough for Todd to say, “So I get everything until the part where you started talking about how everything being purple makes sense.”

Quiet.

The nice kind. The relaxing kind. The kind that gives Dirk time to search for a better way of putting his thoughts into sentences. The kind that makes breathing easier.

In hindsight, Dirk shouldn’t have started depending on Todd to shake him out of it when his thoughts became too loud. In hindsight, Dirk should have just learned to live with his noisy brain.

Because now – it’s just – there’s no more noise.

There’s nothing.

He thinks that Todd is saying something, but Dirk can’t hear him. He can’t really hear anything apart from one voice that cuts through the silence like a knife.

Dirk curls up tighter on the bed. He knows how this works. He lies here, he doesn’t move, his thoughts too scared to speak up, his limbs frozen, and his whole body as if it’s made of stone. The only part of him that still feels alive is his heart, bruising his ribcage in a desperate attempt to flee.

It’s no use.

He’s never getting out of here.

It’s like he’s already back at Blackwing (and really, there is barely any difference between this and being back – both feel hopeless, both feel _silent_ ).

The voice that is a knife brings poison with it: memories that float to the surface of his mind. Memories of trying to run around in his little room at Blackwing (it already seemed little when he was a child), but not succeeding. Of hearing the voice through the loudspeaker in his room, whispery and cold, telling him to go and lie down on the bed, telling him that he was a danger to himself and others.

Dirk refused to do that exactly three times.

Three times where his thoughts raced with him through the room or tried to figure out a way to leave or made him hang upside down from his bed because he was bored and not afraid enough to just cower in the corner. Three times he heard the voice threaten him and laughed, despite the fact that they took away his possessions, that the next experiments were painful.

The fourth time the voice became a man and Priest dragged him from his room to show him what happened to the other people at the base if Dirk didn’t comply.

After that, Dirk did what he was told. There wasn’t anything else to do. His thoughts refused to speak up when they heard Priest, his body locked down and so Dirk lay on the bed, heart hammering painfully, and swallowing down the terror.

He thinks that Priest’s voice sneaked inside his head then. Like a parasite, feeding off his thoughts. The Rowdy Three feeding off of him is painless in comparison. At least, they leave again once it’s done. Priest just – _stays_. And Dirk thought that he had shaken him off, that he had gotten rid of him once he fled.

Of course, he had been wrong again. Always wrong.

And now there’s the silence that comes with the voice. The stifling silence that becomes the backdrop for a multitude of memories, narrated by a voice of gravel.

The mattress next to him dips and Dirk just wants to close his eyes. He couldn’t save Farah, he can’t save Todd, he can’t save anyone. Not one of them. They die and then Dirk goes back to Blackwing, but that’s okay, because surely if they all die he deserves it, he deserves to go back to the silence, but he just – he doesn’t –

There’s something sticking in his throat and Dirk just wants to go to sleep and wake up when all this is over. Maybe, his dreams will be louder.

The mattress starts rocking – Todd must start rocking it – and Dirk is caught in it, moves his body in accordance with it (just comply with whatever is going on, a familiar voice is whispering in his head, and Dirk hates being afraid of his own mind).

The bed lurches suddenly, catapulting them upwards and there is nothing but fear.

Dirk hasn’t complied, he hasn’t – he didn’t stay down on the bed, he kept moving, he kept thinking, he kept being dangerous. His thoughts spiral out of control quietly, like a yarn unravelling, impossibly fast but no noise accompanying it, and they don’t stop when he lands in the grass somewhere. Maybe he can curl up here and still fix, if not everything, something.

Maybe at least Todd doesn’t have to die.

“Dirk,” someone says and it’s not Priest’s voice. Dirk doesn’t need to open his eyes to know that it’s Todd’s.

Dirk keeps quiet. This might be a test.

“Dirk, we made it to Wendimoor. That guy from before, he’s gone. We escaped,” Todd continues.

Dirk’s mind is still tense, braced for impact. He doesn’t know how to make it relax, how to invite non-horrible thoughts back in. Before, he just waited for sleep to overtake him and hoped for waking up to a noisy brain again.

“Dirk, we’re safe,” Todd says, and Dirk opens his eyes slowly.

It’s bright around him, but Todd swims into his vision immediately. He seems concerned. Dirk isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say. He’s not used to talking to anyone when his thoughts aren’t racing.

“How do you feel?” Todd asks and winces shortly after. “Sorry, that’s a stupid question. You obviously don’t feel great.”

It’s not a stupid question. It’s the first time someone has asked him that after – after _that_.

“It’s quiet,” Dirk says. His voice feels hoarse, as if he’s been screaming. (He wouldn’t. He did that once and – he wouldn’t.)

Todd frowns. “ _You’re_ quiet, yes, but everything else isn’t. Listen.” Todd pauses. “We’re in a wood, woods are never quiet. I saw a documentary once about all the animals that inhabit woods and it might not be a hundred percent applicable here because I’m pretty sure we’re in a fantasy land, but in that documentary, they said that there’s always something making noise in a forest.”

Dirk couldn’t care less about the forest. He focuses on Todd’s voice, on the way he keeps talking about the documentary and some kinds of animals. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard Todd talk this much. It’s nice. The words flow over Dirk, gently filling the spaces where Priest cut through and pushed all his thoughts into the dark parts of his mind.

“We’re in Wendimoor,” Dirk says finally, leaning up on his elbow. He’s sick of lying down.

“Yes,” Todd smiles.

“Okay. Keep talking, you make for a good distraction.”

“I’m glad that I can be of some help.” Todd rolls his eyes and Dirk feels something like a smile tug at his lips.

“Always,” he says, and it comes out too fond.

Dirk gets up with Todd’s help. He listens. Not to the woods, not to Todd either, but to his own thoughts. The universe is quiet for once, seems to be too startled to talk to him at the moment, but his own thoughts, the thoughts that are just him, just Dirk Gently, not Project Icarus or Svlad Cjelli, come out of their hiding places.

They’re not racing yet, just walking slowly. It feels like learning how to breathe again.

“I think I solved a case,” Dirk says carefully.

“This case?”

“No, _a_ case. You were involved, but you didn’t know.”

“I was?” Todd is frowning again, but he doesn’t look overly concerned. Maybe they should both be more concerned, they’re apparently in a fantasy land and that’s – that’s not where Dirk wants to be, but well, he’s never been somewhere where they use scissors as swords, so that might be an interesting experience. Or not, depending on whether he runs into someone who wants to kill him or someone who doesn’t want to. Judging from how this day has been going, the former is more likely.

“Do you think people will ever stop trying to kill me? I would _greatly_ appreciate it.”

“What? Yes. Also, backtrack a little, Dirk, you were talking about a case you solved involving me?”

“Right, yes. Can’t you see? You make everything quiet sometimes and then other times you make everything loud again. I thought you could only make it quiet. I thought it only worked one way, but it didn’t. It’s quite fascinating.” Todd is quite fascinating, not that that comes as a surprise to Dirk.  

“I don’t understand anything you’re saying. You’re going to have to explain this at some point, but first we should maybe orient ourselves and figure out our next steps.” Todd shoots him an apologetic look as if to say that he’s truly sorry that he can’t make Dirk explain it right now.

Dirk doesn’t mind. He doesn’t think he could explain it any better if he tried again.

“Any hunch where to go?” Todd asks.

Dirk shakes his head. “No.”

“Okay, then let’s just walk around a bit and hope that you’ll get one. Who knows, maybe I’ll get one instead.” Todd smiles and Dirk tries to smile back.

He doesn’t want to be here, where the universe can’t reach him, and he doesn’t want to be on this case any longer because it gets people hurt simply by being around him, and maybe he deserves to go back, but for now those thoughts have receded, have been replaced by others that are louder.

Dirk follows Todd and listens.

His thoughts are picking up speed.

**Author's Note:**

> Scream with me about Dirk Gently on [tumblr](http://hotchocolatenthusiast.tumblr.com/)


End file.
